Nice Jelly - IM will need to work on the Beau I suspect as I thought they were green uppers not grey in the Pacific but pretty good for work in progress.

Pete

Tell that to Ray Peter

Not sure where that blue Beau came from. The one that was issued with the "certified" MODSquad version was a brown/ green camo model with New Zealand Markings.

There have been some things changed from the SPAW original version, in particular the carriers were moved closer together for online game play. They look a little weird to me as they are floating off the shore of some coral islands but I have no problem with that at all, in fact I'm glad that it still gets used.

HOWEVER, much like any other software package, any changes to the original are not supported by the creators.

The version in the screenies is from one of four planesets.

Planeset1 has the SPAW planes and the SPAW target map
Planeset2 has the SPAW45 planes and the SPAW target map
Planeset3 has the SPAW planes and the SPAW Online target map
Planeset4 has the SPAW45 planes and the SPAW Online target map



I just flew SPAW in 1.28C which uses the SPAW CDFs.
I had nothing else loaded.

Here is the Beaufighter:


I am certain that that is the same aircraft.

Did anyone notice anything about the first screenie in each of my first two posts?

Hi Jelly,

Except for the fact that they are version 3.0, no, but then I am not that observant. Look good. May have to get a new machine when Western Front is released as I really want to try it. Speaking of machines I just persuaded Norton to let me download your various 1.28E/F and SPAW fixes but have not yet tried them. Your "cancel" fix certainly works as far as the into screens are concerned and lowering the graphics makes the game playable again. AS to d3dWindower, I need advice on what resolution to use - 640x480 needs a magnifying glass.

Hi Ray,

Green or perhaps green/brown uppers and grey unders with SEAC roundels etc sounds about right to me. The version Jelly is showing is for a UK based Coastal Command Beau with either Ocean Grey or Sea Grey over Sky. Clearly got switched at some point.

Cheers both,

Pete

Fortunately I haven't been too fastidious with my hard drives.

I have my original SPAW folder and I have the one that I downloaded from Talley-ho after the scenario was released. Mainly to see if the download performed properly.

My original folder has the brown/green New Zealand Beau and the Talley-ho one has the blue Beau. I have no idea what happened to the file set that is on Talley-ho. My intention was to have the New Zealand Beau in the scenario.

But that's what happens in an open community.

Not that it matters much. Users can always go to my page at Talley-ho and download the Beau model of their choice.

The Beaufighter in the second series has rendering issues, especially on the elevators.

Mike, the second Beau pic is in 'glide.'
Ray, you have both the green and blue available at Tally-Ho.

Jel, I put some more .FLT files in my folder at the ftp. (WWI test FLT files.)

AO

1.30???Ver

Absolutely Russ

Having been inspired by BVM I have been working hard to add the new flexmap stuff in 1.29 to 1.30 and the second of my posts showed that I have achieved it.
There is a bit of tweaking to do- mainly the centering of the selection and inflight maps, and there has been a lot of file making and file conversion work as 1.30 uses planes folders with slot free files.
The filenames are completely different- here are the ones I converted for the Fokker Dr1:



The numbers here are simply the multiskins for this aircraft



Ralf also spit the two parts of "weapons.dat" into two separate files.
The first part is still named "weapons.dat", but the second is named "hrdpoint.dat".

So a heap of work has gone into making the 1.30 exe, and into the creation of new files and the conversion of old files.

Aircraft skins have been the trickiest, as many rely on files in the default 3d.cdf. The default ones missing from a folder need to be added so that the whole lot converted.

A/O, I know it is in glide model, 3d3 doesn't have that problem. It has something to do with the f normal and the use of -32768 magic bullet for rendering. Well, that is what I think is a part of the issue. Perhaps a complete removal of the Bullet and a re calc of the normals might help. That is a Boffin issue and I am not even close to Boffinhood.

IM

I here ya Mike,

There are a few planes in SPAW that give me this problem,
especially the SBD.

AO

"I feel ya man..." Stringer Bell to Bodie, "The Wire".

I have managed to work around this by redoing the normals on the wings of few skins and recalcing them. It does take a bit of time and doesn't always work.

If I can get to it I'll try it with the SBD. That skin took a bit of time because of the colors and dive brake interiors.

Now, the model maker needs to be on alert for the glide issues and fix them before they release the model. IMHO

To be clear, the "model maker" didn't know about the -32768 issue until after this model was released.

Also, there's a boatload of models out there that need to have this correction made but there's no one left to do it, even though in many cases it's a simple thing to do.

Any volunteers?............................................
















Na, I didn't think so.

"Na, I didn't think so. "

Not so Ray. Most recently, I fixed the glide issues with the Po631 for Moggy's Dunkirk.

I test all of my skins in glide mode. If they have issues I don't release unless if they can be fixed, and, they pass in glide mode.

I'll take a look at the SBD and see if I can fix it. But, since it is coming on the busy time in my business it may take a while.

The 1.3 is nice, but I fear you rushing into deploying it. (Tony)

(This might seem like a complaint, but it is more of a warning to be very thorough in test offerings before release)

For one the FM slots are free which is awesome, the crowning work of Knegel (Ralf)

But I think that also means since anyone can mix any FM, there are going to be mixups.

Since FM modeling is so obscure (not exact science and not uniform modeling data with game code ever made for EAW) its not practical without following Ralf's work and he had no real apprentice.
The original FM stuff in EAW, and per most games, were created with a FM modeling software.
But in EAW AFAIK it was far from an exact match-up and since EAW development so old and long, and inexact the changes in dev teams, and the code built piecemeal it was never exact and missing a lot of stuff.

Ralf always said all his work he was trying just to 'balance' the FM's relations to each other. Most people probably don't realize that.
Like other games, there were /are a lot of opinions how a plane should behave specs, etc. people complain or wanted to rewrite a FM just so their favorite plane would have the characteristics they 'think' it should. But if one just puts a FM in with no balance to other planes, it completely throws out the relations.

Early EAW history pre 2001 (I missed) had what was called "FM Wars". And that may repeat in an odd way, although none have the skill / knowledge needed to really be capable to make a FM to rival one of Knegel's Fm's.
There is not even any way to build tools or code exact to do so, since the EAW code itself does not have what would be needed.

What to do long term about the FM issue?
Software or code?
I though about it a few times, to try to develop some code just show what simple parts of the model are doing in-game. Sort of a simple 'flight recorder'.
MrJelly, (Tony) might be able to do it.
It might help to give a 'baseline', especially if Ralf would review if its created.
Then probably you would need some 'baseline' FM files prepared by Ralf, for FM modeler to work from to make a balance.
Even then it would be a lot of work but maybe possible. At least better than No System. Which is what we have now.

The others things about 1.3 is difference system in a lot of things like skins, files, folders, etc. etc. Tony knows the most about 1.3 next to Ralf, so hopefully it will work out.

That's great news. Glad you've come on board the 3dz train.

But I must ask, why the rant in the previous post?

Have a problem?

Just fix it.

One person's rant is another's statement of fact.

No need here to start a fight.

Getting onboard the 3dz train is not an easy thing for some of us. It does take time and a great deal of effort to make sense of modeling just as it takes a bit of work to produce good skins.

After hours, even days of editing files I now have a good 1.30 flexible tilemap exe, three scenarios and corresponding planesets.
"ETO_01" uses a "Planes_ETO" folder with the FMs that Ralf converted before he stopped modding.
"SPAWScenario" uses a "SPAWPlanes" folder with skins and FM folders containing files that I converted from Ray's original SPAW.
"TWF130" is a reduced target area version of an extremely mythical Western Front scenario. It uses a "TWFPlanes130" folder with skins and FM folders containing files that I converted from files Ade sent me, plus a few updates.

A package could go out as a beta release, to test the exe with the available scenarios.
On previous occasions it has been difficult to get enough people at coders to do the testing, which is why a beta release within the community may be better.

I will put a package together, and if you want the links to it send me a PM.

FYI 1.30 must use scenario folders with at least one "Planeset" folder and cannot use flight data or skin files from the CDFs. These files cannot be packed in CDFs because all 30 slots have some files with identical names such as "plne.flt", "load.dat" and "plane.dat".
Additionally I have not packaged these scenarios for careers.

Jel